


Sting

by ohvienna



Category: Firefly
Genre: F/M, Future Fic, Hopeful Ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-03
Updated: 2012-11-03
Packaged: 2017-11-17 15:49:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,639
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/553245
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ohvienna/pseuds/ohvienna
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"'Nara, what, what is this that we're doing here?"</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sting

**Author's Note:**

> After _Serenity_. Originally posted on Livejournal 1/2/2007.

Hundreds of jellyfish bobbed up and down in the Grand Lijiang River on Persephone, gliding along the current, sneaking in between glints of evening sun. River stood aside the bank, toes dug into the grass, wind whipping her black slip around her knees. She held one leg in the air, foot pointed straight and poised an inch above the glassy surface as the translucent creatures slid past. She lowered a toe into the cool water, slowly, a fraction of an inch, pulled back quickly, then dipped again. 

Atop the small slope that lead down to the bank and where Serenity had been firmly grounded for the day, Simon was trying to express his gratitude to Inara for her help, for keeping him sane, after he was wounded on Miranda. It was something he had meant to do sooner but never found the right time. His words were cut short when Inara’s hand brushed his arm, turning him to the river. It was then that he noticed his sister’s flirtation with the dangerous ghosts in the water.

“Mei-mei,” he called out, tripping his way down the grassy slope to where River was standing, “don’t…don’t do that.” River stopped, placed both feet on the solid ground. Simon stood next to her, staring.

“They’re going home, Simon. No time to sting.” 

She crouched down, leaning over her knees to peer closer, flecks of sun jumping off the surface and onto her face, into her eyes. She did not break her gaze. The pink jellies continued on, oblivious, as River placed a finger in the water and watched the ripples trail behind and disappear. Simon lowered himself onto the grass, sitting down gently, cringing as a brief flash of pain flared through his abdomen. He turned his head back to Inara, shrugged with his eyebrows, and focused on his sister.

“They keep all of their sting inside. It’s just there if you look through. If you touch. Get close, get stung.” 

Simon went to test the water himself, reaching a hand down in imitation of his sister. River slapped his finger.

“No touching.”

At the top of the slope, Inara watched the duo, her mind starting to sift through recollections of distant lazy autumns on Sihnon; flashes of bamboo rafts, mooncakes, the feel of a jellyfish brushing against her five-year-old ankle and a valiant, albeit unsuccessful, effort not to cry. She was jolted by the silhouettes the siblings formed against the riverbank. They made her remember, and because she did not want to, she averted her eyes from the scene, stared down intently at her bare feet. She wiggled her toes in the grass, and turned away. 

Inara walked around the cargo bay door, Serenity to her right, high mountains to her left. The mountains came to rounded tips and flanked the river for miles, some like camels arching their backs, some curved shark fins slicing through calm skies. Others were thin, jutting things that looked like a child’s drawing, a child from a prairie planet who may have once seen a mountain in a dream and, upon waking, tried her best to remember it. The sun was just beginning to set, blues pushed out slowly by scarlet and vermillion in the mackerel sky. 

Tranquility was not what the crew had in mind when they landed in this region of Persephone, the antipodean side for those who usually found themselves with clients in the Capital, or taking on passengers at the Eavesdown Docks. It had been only a few weeks since they had taken to the black, and while most of the crew, most of the time, found that their actions on Miranda were classifiably heroic, heroism wasn't a long-term provider of fuel for Serenity or food for the table. 

Mal, Zoe, and Jayne were on the job, the first they had come across that they all felt reasonably comfortable taking. During the last weeks, the seven passengers living aboard Serenity had managed to maneuver their lives back into a shaky imitation of order. But to Inara, and, she knew, to the rest of the crew, everything felt like it was on a tilt, backwards, changing. Staring at the setting sun, Inara absentmindedly bit her lip and breathed in deep. 

According to what she knew of Mal’s plans, they were over an hour late in returning, and nowhere in sight. Kaylee, sitting on a folding chair directly in Inara’s path, was pretending to clean off some tools while thinking the same thing. 

“Hey.”

“Hey, ’Nara.” 

Kaylee looked up with a lopsided smile, her eyes sweeping the sky as though she had never seen it before. 

“Sure is real pretty here. Never been this far south on Persephone.”

“Neither have I.”

The pause that followed stretched awkwardly between them.

“They ain’t back yet.”

“Give them time.”

Kaylee started scrubbing harder, and then stopped abruptly. 

“It’s an easy drop. Shouldn’t be takin’ so long.” 

It came out as an inquiry, a prod for reassurance more than a statement of fact. 

“Everything’s fine, they’ve just been…detained somehow.”

“What if they’ve gone and blown themselves up?”

“I’m sure that's not what happened.”

Kaylee turned her eyes back to her task and resumed scrubbing methodically. Inara hated seeing Kaylee’s eyes glazed over with threatening tears, and so decided to point her friend in a more distracting direction. 

“How are things with Simon?”

Looking back up, Kaylee’s eyes went from glistening to beaming in an instant. 

“God, ’Nara, I can’t even begin to…for someone who’s always been so stiff all the time, he’s really, well, still stiff, but, in more of a good way, now, if you know what I mean.”

“I think I do.”

Kaylee looked over at Inara, a knowing smile creeping across her face.

“I saw you.”

“Huh?”

“Last week. You know.”

Inara did her best to pretend she didn't know what her friend was talking about, but she feared she did not succeed, as so often was the case with the crew of Serenity. 

“I…no, I have no idea what you mean.”

“You and the Cap--.”

At this dangerous conversation juncture, the cry of pain that resounded from the riverbank was not unpleasant to Inara’s ears.

“I think Simon could use your assistance over there.”

Kaylee looked over to where Simon was now holding tightly to his hand and trying his best not to scrunch up his face in a grimace. Kaylee dropped her things and sprang up from her chair, knocking it over backwards. 

“He’s hurt.”

Kaylee let her feet trip down the slope before Inara could tell her not to worry. She picked up the folding chair. Setting it back upright and settling herself down, Inara watched as Kaylee squatted next to Simon, taking his hand into her own. 

Glancing over her shoulder in the hopes of seeing three familiar outlines making their way towards the ship, Inara was greeted with only those mountains and a twist in the river that impeded her view of their, she hoped, eventual approach. Having had her fill of empty horizons, she shifted her focus back to the scene before her, just as Simon took his hand away from Kaylee’s grasp, shaking it and rubbing his fingers together. Kaylee started to help him up, but before doing so, she stole a quick second to tilt his head up towards her, thumb brushing against his lips, so that she could distract him with a quick kiss. Simon smiled, Kaylee’s action momentarily calming the burning nerves on his overworked fingers.

A quick intake of air relieved Inara of the sudden sharp twinge she felt run across her bottom lip. She remembered the sensation of being hit, the copper taste it left behind, and then the feel of another hand brushing across it, making contact. Too much contact. Though more than gentle, she could still feel the sting of it on her lip. It felt good, to be touched by hands full of worry; at the same time, it hurt, because more was impossible. She pushed back the memory, an action she had learned to execute with professional expertise at an early age. But this time, a new feeling found its way back to her lips and spread out across her nerves with stunning speed. The wind picked up, and she shivered.

Simon, Kaylee and River were making their way back into the ship, presumably to find some relief for Simon’s burning fingers. Kaylee flashed another crooked smile at Inara as she walked past.

“Come wait inside. Simon’s gotta fix up his poor little fingers, but then we were gonna start up some dinner. Bet the Cap’n and them will be wantin’ somethin’ resembling food when they get back.”

“I’ll just be a minute.”

Kaylee pulled off her jacket, a silky blue and flowery thing, and chucked it at Inara’s lap before heading onto the ship. Inara pulled the jacket around her shoulders, shifted herself to face the presumed direction of the crew’s tardy arrival, and waited, thinking on what Kaylee’s spying eyes had seen.

* * * * * * 

“There’s coffee. There. Still hot, if you’d rather something different.”

Inara had barely made it past Mal, seated at the kitchen table, before he spoke. She followed his pointing finger, poured herself a mug full, and sat down. There was an empty mug at the table in front of her, and an almost empty bottle of bourbon next to it. The mug was Zoe’s. Inara recalled one of the last times that Mal, Zoe, and herself had sat around this table together, drinking and laughing, comforting each other. It was a lot different then; this, she thought, was so much harder. Laughter like that would be a long time coming. Mal reached over and pulled her mug away from her. Without asking, he poured out the rest of the bottle’s contents, not a whole lot, into her mug. He pushed it back in front of her.

“That’s the last. Fine bourbon, that. Straight from Londinum. Though, ain’t quite as good as some of the moonshine I’ve had in my day.”

Inara could tell, from his expression and the way he was speaking, that he was far from inebriated. It took much more than a few spiced up coffee drinks to knock Malcolm Reynolds off his feet. Inara put the warm liquid to her lips and sipped, swallowed. She raised an eyebrow.

“It’s strong.”

“Mmm.”

Inara put down her mug. The burning in her throat felt good, and gave her the extra energy to look him in the eye when he asked,

“Don’t suppose you’ve got any places to be, next couple of weeks?”

Inara hesitated, dreading the fact that they were about to launch into the conversation they had been fastidiously avoiding since she had found herself back on Serenity. 

“No. I haven’t start--”

Mal gulped down the last of his coffee, and put down his mug just a little too hard. 

“Found us a job.”

“What?”

“Well, not, by us I mean not you. Me, Zoe, and Jayne. The crew. Not to say that you’re not--”

Inara cut him off. “What’s the job?”

“Smuggle, drop, get paid, leave. Easy peasy.”

“Cargo?”

“Firecrackers. The ones kids use to celebrate on U…anyway, they’re illegal in the Core and on some of the fancier Border planets.”

Inara smiled, relieved. This would be an easy job. She was sure she wasn't ready to watch Mal, and the rest of the crew, as they took off on dangerous mission after dangerous mission, unsure if they would all be making it back to her in one piece.

“People love those.”

“Yeah, well, supply and demand. The job’s on Persephone. So, we’ll be headin’ that way, in the case you’re lookin’ to make arrangements.”

Inara nodded.

“Thank you.”

“So then you are. Looking.”

“Mal--”

“No, it’s fine.” 

Mal rose from the table, chair legs scraping loudly against the floor. 

“We’ll be there Monday. 11:00 a.m. local time. Probably stick around at least a week, I’d say. You’ll be able to get a lot done.” 

Mal was about to leave the kitchen, dutifully avoiding the subject as was their custom, when Inara, filled with a sudden need to be frank, but still speaking directly to the table in front of her, told him to,

“Wait.”

He turned back to face her, a slight look of hopeful expectation creeping its way on his face. 

“When you asked me if I was ready to get back to civilized life, I--”

Mal’s face fell. 

“Sounds as if you’re changin’ your mind.”

“I don’t sound like anything. I’m just…trying to make a point.”

“I thought we were trying to do the thing where we pretend there’s no point to be made.”

Inara stood up and moved towards the doorway.

“And getting upset and walking away is your idea of not making a point?”

“No, no, I think you have me confused with someone else. Namely you.”

It was a momentary struggle for Inara to keep herself from looking defeated.

“Mal, there are things that…look, regardless of the many, many things you may have said in the past, I just need you to know that being a Companion, it’s a decision that I made…and continue to make, despite any other doors that may have presented themselves over the years.”

“Well, see, that’s the crux, right there, Inara. Smart woman like you, you could be any--”

“I wouldn’t have been able to be a Companion in the first place if I wasn’t.” 

The words that could make Mal understand never seemed to find a voice, and the ones Inara did manage to speak always seemed to fall short of her goal. At the moment, she wanted him to understand her more than she ever had, but there was still a limit to how much of herself she could bare to expose. She took a breath and moved a step closer.

“Mal, I have been a Companion and…little else since I was twelve-years-old.”

“Ain’t true. You’re--”

“Mal--”

“Sorry.”

“Before...”

She started, then stopped, as unpleasant thoughts of her life just prior to Serenity began to surface. She knew it was best to stick with vagaries, for Mal’s sake, and her own. 

“Before all of this, I never gave a second thought to what I was going to be doing for the rest of my life. Stopping was never…and if I was going to stop at some point, some point before I had to, I’d need to have a reason. I’d need to be sure of what I was stopping for, something over and above just…”

“Me?” 

Inara swallowed visibly instead of answering.

“Wasn’t askin’ that of you.”

It was only a half truth, and Mal knew that she could tell. His actions and that wounded expression he made were his constant betrayers. Mal was a realistic man, but there was a part of himself that he was unable to hide. It was the part that wished, despite everything his momma taught him about women, that he alone could be enough. Neither one of them could stand being tangled yet again at this impasse, so Mal looked to the floor, and Inara fished around for something more to say that was less complicated than the truth. 

“I know we need the money right now.”

“That’s your money, not ours. I don’t need…it helps, the rent, but--”

“Serenity almost fell apart while I was at the Training House.”

“That’s not…it…okay, maybe a bit more than usual, but that’s just because we hadn’t taken any--”

Inara stepped closer to him. 

“I think we should try to focus on getting things back to normal for the time being. Everything feels so…wrong right now, and, I know things will improve, at least I hope that…” she sighed, “I just, I don’t want us to do anything that we’re going to--”

Mal stepped towards Inara.

“Regret?”

“Yes.” 

“Back to normal?”

“Yes.”

Mal closed the gap between them, squinting his eyes, smirking.

“Whore.”

“Thief.”

Mal moved on impulse alone. His lips were on hers for mere seconds; he barely had time to move his hands halfway to her face before he felt her tensing up, breaking away. Inara tried to regain her composure before speaking, but the words came out harsher than intended. 

“That...that was different than before.”

“But it was also a bit the same, with the mean name calling. Just improved. Less hurtful, more-”

“I’m not stopping.”

“Inara--”

“It’s only been a few weeks since...” She pulled her shoulders back, standing taller as she retreated back into herself. 

Mal glared, nostrils doing that familiar flare. 

“It’s fine.” This time, those two words shot out of him, traces of anger lining their edges. “I blame that, whatever that was, on the alcohol. Drank too much, same old story.”

Mal walked towards his room. Inara registered the clanking of his retreating boots in the silent passageway as just another among many familiar echoes. In the middle of it all, unnoticed by either of them, the cracked open door to Kaylee’s room was pulled quietly shut. 

“Rent’s due Monday after next. First of the month like before. I’ll let last month’s slide.”

The hatch door closed, leaving Inara leaning against the archway, fingers pressed to her lips, and feeling as though an open door had just slammed shut in her face.

* * * * * *

Inara was drifting in and out of sleep when she felt the tap on her shoulders, and for a moment she couldn't place where she was. The sky had turned completely red, no traces of blue left to counter its angry appearance. A familiar voice brought her out of her moment of disconcertedness. The voice was a welcome one, and it shook the last of her latest nightmare out of her mind. 

“What with the chair and the jacket, I almost thought you were ’lil Kaylee waitin’ up for us from way back there.”

Inara sat up straight and turned to find herself staring at Mal. But not just Mal. Zoe stood to his side, one arm supporting him as he leaned against her shoulder.

“Mal, what--”

“It’s nothin'. Come inside.” 

“You’re hurt.”

“Just a scratch.”

Inara turned to Zoe, accidentally catching the moment when Zoe made her eyes turn hard, erasing the worried gaze she had been directing at her best friend. In a concerted effort to lighten the mood and hide the fact that just moments before she had been terrified by the thought that they might not be returning at all, Inara put on her best, most comically bemused expression. She arched an eyebrow in question. 

“Job went south, is all. Nothing that’s never happened before.”

“What’s wrong with him?”

“Got in a fight. Twisted his ankle running away.”

Mal took issue with this. “I wasn’t running away.”

“Whatever you say.”

“I wasn’t. I was merely trying to circumvent his attack and find a better…”

Zoe glared at him.

“Fine. Why don’t you, you know, go make sure everyone else is on the ship so we can get off this rock.”

“Can do, sir.” 

She let him go, quickly making sure he wasn’t going to topple over, then made her way into the cargo bay. Inara could hear Jayne in the distance, already retelling and exaggerating whatever had happened on the job to a presumably wide-eyed Kaylee. She wondered briefly why her friend had left her out here sleeping, then realized she had done it on purpose. She and Mal were alone, and she couldn't help but think that this was what Kaylee had hoped would happen. 

Mal turned his gaze to the river, now reflecting the red sky that stretched above. The last of the jellies were glowing translucent and pink beneath the surface, like flickering little lights, Inara thought, on a submerged theater marquis.

“Wouldya look at that.” Mal hobbled forward, intent on getting closer to the river’s edge. “Ow.”

Inara jumped out of the chair and moved to him, taking him around the waist as she had done before. After Atherton. It seemed like ages had gone by since then, that everything in her world had turned upside down. She thought of where she was, and laughed at the fact that, in all sense and purposes, she was literally upside down, on the other side of the planet from where that damned duel had taken place.

“My pain funny to you?”

“A little bit, yes.” It wasn't true at all. 

She helped him walk down to the bank. 

“Shouldn’t we be getting you to Simon? You need to get some ice on that sprain.”

“Already did, in the mule on the way back. It’s pleasantly numb right now…ow.”

“You want to sit?”

“Yes, please.”

Inara helped lower him to the ground at the edge of the river. He stuck his injured leg out, and she saw that it had already been wrapped up and bandaged. He winced, and settled himself into the most comfortable position he could manage. Mal tapped the grass next to him. Inara gathered her skirt in her hand and sat down, crossing her legs underneath her. She turned away from the river to get a good look at him. His face was bruised, all scratched and dirty. She could see his right eye was turning purple, and there was a slice of dark crimson on his bottom lip, red and angry. 

“Isn’t this all a little much over some contraband pyrotechnics?”

“Weren’t firecrackers in those crates.”

“What was it?”

“Drugs. All kinds. We were lied to. Our contact wanted us to deliver the goods to one of Badger’s old cronies. Turns out he turned snitch. Got us all caught up in some big Alliance drug sting.”

“How’d you get away?”

“There was some scuffling. Everyone just…”

“Ran?”

“Yeah. You know, not how I imagined all this going.”

“Never is.”

“If that ain’t the truest thing I ever heard.”

The conversation stalled briefly before Mal asked,

“So. How was your week?”

“Uneventful.”

“Same old, same old?”

“You could say that.” 

Mal pulled absentmindedly at a blade of grass.

“Any regulars?”

“No.”

Now they were both pulling at the grass, as if engrossing themselves in this destructive task would somehow mean they could avoid talking. Inara sighed, and stopped. 

“I’m glad you’re okay.” 

“Well.”

“I was…we all were wondering what happened. You were so late.”

“Truly sorry. Didn’t mean to keep you on edge. Not that to see you there, waiting, wasn’t a sight. Fella could get used to that.”

“You want me to just sit around waiting for you to get back from jobs all the time?” She was teasing, not accusing. 

“Must you twist everything around, woman? I was just sayin’, was nice, is all.” 

Something about the way he was looking at her, the gash on his lip, the bruises on his face, she found that the sight of it make her chest constrict. Thinking on everything they had just gone through, Inara turned away. She focused her gaze on watching the jellies float by. Mal did the same.

Whether it was a need to fill the silence, or something more that that, Mal wasn’t sure. All he knew was that he was suddenly talking. 

“Back on Shadow, my momma and some of the ranch hands used to take me and the local kids to a river, if they found the time. Come summer, that planet got hot as the fires of the special hell.”

“The what?”

“Nevermind. Six-years-old, there was this girl, Lilly, she dared me to just jump right in. It wasn’t the safest of rivers, all rocks and crags and pitfalls. Dive in the wrong place you could break your neck in two feet of water. But, I’d a done anything this girl said, no askin’ what for. She used to call me names, I called her names right back, pulled her pigtails.”

“Sounds like somebody had a little crush.”

“I thought she was the prettiest thing I’d ever seen. So I did. Jumped right in, not taking heed of anything.’”

“What happened?”

Mal pointed to the river. 

“Jumped right onto a bunch of those things. The non-deadly variety, but damn if it didn’t sting like nothin' I ever felt in my life. I could barely run out of the river, but, I did it myself, didn’t want anyone seein’ me needin’ help. Out of the river’s ’bout as far as I got. Landed on the sand and cried my eyes out. Don’t think Lilly was very impressed.”

“Well, six-year-olds can be quite fickle.”

Inara shifted her position, pulling her knees up to her chest and raising her skirt above her ankles.

“I got stung, too, when I was five. I had my leg dangling over the side of a raft.” 

She pointed at her foot. 

“I don’t really know why, but, I never wanted to get the scar removed.” 

Mal reached over, running his thumb over the tiny slash of raised skin that ran across her ankle. 

“Hmm. Have any more?”

“Yes.”

“Show me.”

Inara responded by shifting her legs back underneath herself. The red sky loomed overhead.

“Red sky at night…” said Inara.

“Sailor’s delight,” Mal finished. “Good thing it’s not mornin’, otherwise…”

She knew it was more than Mal's story that made some of her own censors start breaking down. Words she never said to him, that she never thought she wanted to say, came tumbling out of her mouth. 

“I hate worrying about…I pray for you. When you’re gone. All the time.”

Mal scrunched up his face as he turned to face her.

“And I hate thinking on what you do. Wish you wouldn’t.”

“The other night--”

“I’m sorry ’bout that. Suppose it’s my way, never taking heed. Should start doin’ that. When I don’t, people get hurt. I don’t think and end up doin’ things that leave me or other folk stingin.’”

Inara exhaled, and tried to let go of all the fear she had of that sensation. The one that lingered every time Mal touched her skin, her lips. 

“Mal?”

“What?”

“Jump.”

“Into the river? There’s all the things in there.”

It was then that he saw how she was looking at him. Expectant, hopeful. 

“Oh. You sure?”

She nodded. 

He leaned in to her, she leaned into him. They kissed, slowly. The first surprising thought that ran through Inara’s mind was that it was one of the most hesitant kisses she had ever experienced, before other thoughts briefly took its place. Mal pulled away first. Inara faced the river and brought her fingers up to her lips.

“What’s wrong?”

Inara smiled.

“Nothing.” She brought her hand up to his chin, brushed her thumb across his lip.

“How’s your lip?”

“Hurts something awful.”

“Still?”

“Well, what we just did there, that was helpful.”

“This?” She kissed him again.

“Yeah, much better.” He took a moment to consider before continuing, “’Nara, what, what is this that we’re doing here?”

“I…”

“…don’t know?”

“Yes.”

“Me neither.”

The sun set and the stars flickered in the black far above their heads. Mal moved as if to stand, and Inara got to her feet, helping him up. She wrapped her arm around his waist. Mal draped an arm around her shoulders. They supported each other as they made their way up the incline. 

“Hey, how’s about I’ll give you a discount on your rent?” 

“How much?”

“How’s free sound?”

“Right now? That’s too much of a discount.”

“Seventy-five percent?”

“Twenty-five.”

“Fifty.”

“Deal.”

 

 

_And when we kissed_  
 _It didn’t feel poisonous_  
 _And when you cried_  
 _I dried off your blue eyes_  
 _She smiles at me as she is falling asleep_  
 _Says 'we've gotta live_  
 _The best we know how to.'_  
-“A Sea Chanty of Sorts,” Margot & the Nuclear So and Sos


End file.
